A very sad affair

I decided to go on a cheap day return to London (it turned out there was nothing cheap about it and doing it in a day nearly killed me). A woman got on: friendly, gorgeous, about 40. She said she was going to a party at The Dorchester on Park Lane that "should be a good night".

She opened her book. It was called The Trouble with Marriage. Then her phone rang. It was incredibly loud. Immediately she turned to the window. One of the first things I heard was "…cake and eat it" and then, "Don't you dare say those things. It's been five years and what do you do? You go back home to your wife. And what do I do? I get on the train and go back to the country."

She spent the three-hour train journey whispering into her phone and sobbing.

I wondered what the man's wife was doing. Cooking Sunday lunch, perhaps, while he took the dog for a very long walk?

The conversation was riveting, but the sobbing was terrible. I hate it when people cry on trains. When I was married, I cried the whole time on trains. The misery of awful relationships is a terrible, dirty kind of misery because it’s your fault and their fault and the way out isn't clear. I remember once, I was crying on the tube when I noticed opposite me an old man who was also crying. There was something so beautiful about the way he cried, head up, hand clutched tight to the pole. A noble sadness – over something worthwhile, not some miserable, crappy relationship.

When we eventually drew into Waterloo, the woman touched up her make-up and got off the train. It was like Brief Encounter gone wrong. ·